They'll Never Learn
by smilelaughread
Summary: Purebloods need to cut their losses and run because we're Slytherins. We're not meant for the front lines, but no one is intelligent enough to see that. HPFC challenge, prompt: "I read her journal five years ago, and have hated her ever since."


Pansy is making a scene in the common room, again. I can't stand it, and want to go upstairs. I can't, though, because I have to sit here and be a perfect Pureblood (does the word mean anything anymore?) beside the boy who will be my husband in a few years. He is not touching me, but he's close enough to meet the social expectation that will be accepted by all the other brainwashed Slytherins.

Pansy is making some interesting noises of discontent, wrinkling that pug nose and stomping around with the grace of a House-Elf. I assume Draco refused her something again – diamond jewellery or something frivolous like that, I'm sure – and she's making a fuss.

I hate her.

The nasally voice and the way she comports as though she has never taken etiquette classes should be enough indication to anyone that she's got terrible secrets. The way she drapes herself over everyone and never flaunts her money the way Theo or Daphne do, as well.

It should be obvious, but it's not. I hate her for pretending and can't believe no one else can see it.

Knowing things about her that no one else has found makes me feel both incredibly sneaky and reminds me that no one in Slytherin can think for themselves. I can see that she's hiding something. I sniffed it out – delicately and staying ladylike as well as polite the whole time. Three things Pansy is not.

I read her journal.

A few years ago is when I found it.

I think she burned it after that, because I left her a small note to tell her I read it and put it back.

It's long gone, disappeared as though it never existed, as though she never kept it under her pillow like an uneducated, sentimental Hufflepuff - ready to be found by anyone curious enough to go looking.

It's the reason she never speaks to me, the reason her eyes skate over me nervously when I'm in a crowd. It's the reason she smothers everyone with rumours about me – she doesn't want anyone finding out.

She's why everyone avoids me, but I despise her more than they could ever hate me… collectively.

They're all a bunch of meek sheep that have been smacked into submission, after all. _I_ have been taught higher forms of manipulation. I know how to tell the difference between lies and stupidity, plentiful in the Slytherin common room. I know to think for myself – and think well, at that. I am above them all, and I think on a basic level they all know that. They know better than to mess with me, because Pansy did that once and she now knows firsthand that I'm not only better at her game than she is, I play a completely different one.

Why would I want companionship from people who cannot control themselves, anyway? They can't even sit back long enough to see that their Dark Lord is fighting a losing battle, that he's fighting for a cause that will never win.

They can't see that the Purebloods are losing their standing in society and that actions have to be taken to stop that.

They're too narrow-minded to understand what muggles – though a lower life form – have managed to do without magic. If they understood that the technology and different inventions the muggles have come up with could be combined with magic to create something incredible… then I'd have to give them some respect.

The things their families stand for and have drilled into them are outdated. New ideas have come into practice since the last generation's time, but they can't get their noses out of the sky for long enough to see and take advantage of that.

Idiots.

After all, if Purebloods are so powerful, how is it that Pansy's family had to sell all three of their estates to keep their heads above water?

That's right, she's dirt poor. As powerless as a young muggle child against a strong wizard would be. Her family has no political standing, and it's evident in everything she does. It proves my theory that everyone else is as blind as they are insular.

It also goes to show how desperate the Pureblood families – even one that would have been disgraced and discarded as obsolete such as Pansy's – are. They want to uphold the image of greatness when they're all slowly losing power. They're losing everything, but they don't want to do anything about it because it wouldn't follow ancient traditions to do so.

No one sees that the past is gone; it is a new time where sacrifices and changes have to be made because otherwise, the Purebloods will be eradicated. When Potter's side wins, as I'm sure it will, everything we value will be labelled "dark" simply because the consensus is that the Purebloods are fighting the Dark Lord's battle. Once one family did it, the others followed and now it's become a stereotype that the high-standing Purebloods are on _his _side. All we are fighting for will be lost and it's because no one has enough brain to realize we should cut our losses and run.

To hell with everything, because we're supposed to be Slytherins; sly, cunning, but not brave. We are not made for the front lines; we are meant to be slippery and gone when danger arises.

We're being foolish, and I hate them for it.

And Pansy, too, for convincing me there's no hope, for deceiving everyone, for lowering our standards.

I read her journal five years ago, and have hated her ever since.

* * *

**Written for Cheeky Slytherin Lass' Secrets Competition on the HPFC forum. The secret is "I read her journal five years ago, and have hated her ever since," if you couldn't guess :D.**


End file.
